Absence makes the heart forget eventually.

Just in case you have been wondering what I have been up to that has kept blogs to a minimum (as if you would), I have been rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. My one completed novel has now been read by a few writer friends some of whom were kind enough to offer real criticism.
So, as I am about to embark on the hardest part of the journey, ie, finding an agent, the little computer has been burning up the renewables while chapters were moved around, characters (re)developed and a lot of cuts made (boo hoo). Thanks to all of you and special thanks to Selma who gave me detailed feedback
Meanwhile Tiziana’s bathroom (head) is a mere skeleton to be rebuilt over the next week or two bringing to an end the major works prior to her being slipped and her bottom ‘done’.
Somehow in there I must find time for an x-ray and ultrasound on a shoulder that is still very sore two months after damage incurred in the chain locker, another colonoscopy, IXL’s coming monster auction of a lifetime’s collection of chattels on July 31, back to the dentist for after sales service on a botched root canal job, plus I have started a new series for classroom reading ‘lessons’ called ‘Mouse in the House’ for a school I adopted.
If you teach 5 or 6 year olds, ask and ye shall receive a free advance copy with model lesson plan.
By the way, this material will dramatically boost reading age in any child, but is particularly effective with ‘right brain’ kids and spectacular with ‘ADHD fuelled clowns’ and, it is heaps of fun to do.

Observing teaching lately, I note the widespread use of computer programs for reading. If teachers think stuff on screens, even interactive ones is a big deal to modern kids, they should think again. Every child has been saturated with screens so they might find it refreshing to get their eyes, ears, feet and minds back into the real world where people still live some of the time!

Neil Armstrrong wears Playtex.

Listening to the radio yesterday, as is my wont, I heard a woman talking about winning a trip into space in a competition run by Virgin’s Dick Brainstorm. During the conversation she told us she would be ‘wearing a nappy made by Playtex, just like Neil Armstrong did’ and this popped into the brane.

A toddler in space.

Once when a spaceman named Neil
was asked; ‘Neil how do you feel?”
He said; “I’m quite happy,
except my full nappy
does not have a lot of appeal!”

Magpie's nest of vipers

What the artist’s wife said.

I can’t bear to look, ‘cause it makes
Me freak out and suffer the shakes.
They might be fine art
But to me, Darling Heart,
They look far too much like real snakes!

Less scary takes on the prompt at Magpie Tales.

What am I bid?

Here we have lot number one-ninety-nine
Who she was, lost in the passage of time
Somebody’s mother?
A daughter, a lover?
Done! It’s yours Sir, but why do you cry?

More items from Tess's attic can be found at Magpie Tales.

End of an era.

It is with great regret I say farewell to a good and faithful servant.
Sounds like the start of a eulogy and it is.
What you see here is a 1989 model Atari Mega II computer.

This computer was the power behind twenty years of publishing and composing. It was fast and reliable and still is. Does anyone have a 22 year old PC still working? I don‘t.
Long before MS Windows, this ‘windows’ machine had the capability to handle up to seven open screens for dragging and dropping, cutting and pasting and its choice of ports was staggering.
The MIDI interface is built in, as is its many more ports to attach piano keyboards, drives, printers, phone line and more, so it was the fastest and easiest machine to use, much faster and more powerful than the Mac of its day.
A Seagate hard drive added in 1993 gave it even more punch and super fast loading of programs.
But since Atari decided to pull out of cmputer manufacturing, this remarkable machine has been starved of programs and can no longer do what I want.
So, with IXL about to move aboard with her stuff, everything not absolutely necessary must go and I cannot justify keeping my darling Atari aboard.
So, if anyone needs a vintage Atari loaded with programs that works as well as ever, you have about two weeks before she hits the recycle bin.
Boo Hoo!

Magpie 69 or a mere shell of its former self.

History in seashell.

Imagine the world as it was if you can,
when life on this planet so rampant began.
These sea gastropods
predated the gods
and squeezed in between, the emergence of Man.

Tess saw more seashells on the seashore at Magpie Tales.

Blogger Woes

Me with my laptop when I lived in Ur.

Eventually, after weeks of frustration not being able to comment on friends blogs, Blogger wouldn't let me into my own blog. So, I reset my e-mail and password and presto! All good.
But it did give me a scare, knowing most of my blogs exist only at Blogger so guess who has spent hours backing up blogs!

Mooloolaba Trawlers.

Sign of the times.
First the entree.
Like a cheap boat? This one came in a few months ago after it was surrendered to the bank. She will go at a fraction of her replacement value and a bargain for anyone wanting a really big luxury American built cruiser.
The main story.
While handing out voting information during our recent Federal election I was accosted by an angry forty-something woman.
‘I’d vote Green but you won’t let me fish!’, she snarled at me, in a not-to-be-questioned statement. Our Green Party does have scientifically recommended policies to create more marine parks where species can survive to keep recreational and professional fisheries sustainable.

The level of debate here can be judged by a bumper sticker on a fisherman’s car that says “Fix the environment-shoot a Greenie”.
To illustrate depletion of fisheries I describe observations made in two fishing ports, Eden in New South Wales and Mooloolaba Queensland.

Eden in the 1960’s was a bustling international fishing port. I saw huge trawlers and ‘mother ships’, refuelling from one of four million litre tanks above the wharves across the bay from a substantial fish cannery, the biggest employer in the town. You can see the tanks over the bay behind my youngest with kids in about 2008. Empty, and a reminder of happier times.
When I was there three years ago, the cannery was gone, its long wooden wharf festooned with danger signs. For sale signs stakes out landscaped vacant land where the giant fuel tanks once stood. The three remaining working trawlers, tiny by comparison, were serviced from a road tanker filled from one of the two town gas stations.

Here in Mooloolaba, four of the largest trawlers have been tied up for two months, the crew gone, looking increasingly forlorn. Yesterday I asked and was told the ‘company’s broke’. That represents about a quarter of the current working fleet. Further questions revealed that those four were what was left of eight the company worked only two years ago. That business failed because the fisheries are no longer sustainable at even the current reduced level of activity.

So what should be done? Around here there is no doubt. Open marine parks to commercial fishing and/or shoot a Greenie. Although everyone here knows the truth, it is convenient to blame someone for their predicament and it seems there are plenty of populist politicians who pop up to direct the anger at their political opponents. It is rare a politician in opposition is forced to deliver so their rhetoric produces two unfortunate outcomes. They give people false hope, delaying their departure from dying industries and sometimes their rhetoric leads to frustration fuelled violence.

Meanwhile I am gertting on with curing my lovely old Tiziana of the measles. As you can see she has a serious case of the 'patches'.

Magpie 68 (heard at an old pirate's home).

Bluebeard’s Lament or…
‘Left without a leg to stand on’.

During a melee at sea
So wounded, unfor-tu-nate-ly,
He can’t sign the leases
For rented prostheses.
‘cause he has no hands and can’t see!

Shh! He still has his Buccaneers

Get another eyeful at Magpie Tales.

Why are you still here!!!

Raptures past and present...

I have been around for at least three predictions of  'The Rapture' and may live long enough to see a couple more. It seems every generation of Christians wants the big R to happen in their lifetime. But you have to hand it to them. They have unquestioning gullibility and shameless tenacity; a dangerous combination.

They said; “if you wake up to find
the faithful have left you behind,
you’ll know that the rapture
failed to recapture
your devious Atheist mind!”

So what did I find when I woke
this morning and looked for you folk?
You-all are still here,
not in Heaven, I fear
‘Cause the whole stupid thing is a joke!

It’s clear that the Rapture’s a con,
with so many dates come and gone.
It seems that the grand plan
is worth even less than
the paper it’s all written on!

First published in Poetry 24, a news based poetry blog that is well worth a look... well, go on!